[Our family's morning yesterday seemed to echo this week's Awakin passage on The Hole-y Bucket. :) I shared these stories in last night's Awakin Circle, and was encouraged to share here as well.]

This morning, we went hiking in the Marin Headlands with my two little grandkids and my son, Anupam.

We were going up the hill. There was this beautiful ocean below the cliff, and a little bit of a hill on the side. We were walking up, and little Benny -- he's two years old -- discovered his shadow.

The shadow was going up the hill. He looked at it for a while, and then, he decided he wants the shadow to come down. So he's climbing up the hill trying to catch his shadow to come down. And he struggled for a while.

I kept telling him, "Benny, if you just walk yourself, the shadow, will follow you."

He didn't understand it. But, after a little while, he realized that when he just dances along, the shadow just follows him along and dances along with him.

I thought that was just wonderful -- you just go do your stuff, and joy and shadow will follow you.

Later in the morning, we came down the hill and the kids were playing on the beach. Anupam was sitting on one side, maybe a hundred feet away. I was playing with Benny. Atticus, his brother, who's four year old, decided to carry sand to his dad. So with leaky fingers, they had sand in their little fists. They were running up to dad, giving him the sand, and running back. They kept going back and forth like that.

After they finish, Atticus looks back, and there's this beautiful path with sand all along it. They looked at it and asked, "Who made this?"